July 31, 2017

Some
democracies lose their ability to give all citizens equal power over their
lives. If you feel you live in such a society, there are many concrete things
that allow you to reclaim your democracy. These concrete actions may differ some,
depending on the type of society in which you find yourself. Yet there is also
significant overlap across different settings when acting to revive democracy.

Those
who live under dictatorships have been successful in strengthening democratic
social structures as a step towards overthrow of autocratic rule. The recent success
of Tunisia in such a transformation is only one of a long history of
countries that have reclaimed their governance practices from centralized
authoritarianism. These successes have been analyzed by Gene Sharp
and other commentators and organizers.

Success at decentralizing power
often seem to come from a careful, strategic effort to revitalize local
organizations and dislodge centralized power. These efforts can come from
coordinated work to strengthen social institutions while gradually beginning to
challenge the authority of centralized power structures. This work may take the
simple form of religious organizations, cultural associations, sports clubs,
trade unions, student associations, village councils, neighborhood associations,
gardening clubs, human rights organizations, musical groups and literary
societies, and other bodies. (Sharp, 4th ed., 22)

So reclaiming decentralized power
can start with the widespread revitalization of community bodies that provide a
structural base for governing community affairs. Some of these organizations
may attract the attention of authoritarian elites, such as trade unions or
human rights organizations, but many others may operate freely for a long time
without such attention.

In nations where electoral democracy
is seemingly alive and well, even if power inequalities remain widespread, many
concrete actions will contribute to increased control over social relations. In
the United States after President Trump was
elected, for example, many feared that their status as a democracy might be
at risk. As is the case when normalized ideas of what keeps a democracy alive
are threatened in other electoral nation-states, there may be a temporary rush
to strengthen important institutional supports for electoral democracy.

If you have grown to distrust
electoral democracies as a way to achieve equality, then you may put your
efforts into reviving democratic practices that redistribute power more
equally. There are two key ways to decentralize power for those interested in democracy
beyond elections and other practices that produce inequality. First are
those structures that protect the general interest. Common examples of these
structures are mass assemblies, village or town meetings, and other occasions where
all community members are present. These structures confront those who pursue
their own narrow interests with the assembled multitudes who may pursue policies and practices that
serve the general interest.

Second are practices that produce
consensus. Rather than marginalizing a minority, they bring all parties together
to encourage them to find solutions that satisfy all. By taking consensus at
their center, rather than elections, these practices teach participants how to
work across disagreement and difference constructively.

For some, democracy is only possible when
elections have been left behind and other forms of democratic practices take
center stage. For others, electoral democracy as found in the European-style modern
nation-state is the only possible form of democracy. But all have work to do if
they wish to strengthen democracy in practice, whether in Tunisia or the United
States or in social spaces where a lack of democracy produces political
urgency.

Equality in
practice is limited in electoral democracies to formal political equality, such
as equal rights, like the right to vote, and other general principles. The failure
to produce equality outcomes in other parts of life, such as economic equality
and social or cultural equality, has often been hidden in the past half century
by this emphasis on formal political equality.

By forcing
voters to limit their participation to leverage over delegated representation, the
modern electoral state weakens their ability to produce equality in their
economic, social, cultural, and even political lives. By reducing their equal democratic
practice to participation through abstract political rights and principles,
modern electoral states prevent direct participation for those who wish to
produce economic, social, and cultural equality. Equal outcomes may be
electoral democracy’s weakest point.

These days,
most national democracy tells us not about equality but about how we must
accept inequality: how we must vote for those who can only talk inequality,
must live in places where inequality seems normal and natural, must complain
about inequality but not practice equality. Electoral democracies often
reinforce or deepen the inequalities between political elites and ordinary
citizens, rich and poor, urban and rural, men and women, colonizers and the
colonized, workers and employers, educated and uneducated, and other social
divisions.
Yet many communities and organizations from all over the world practice
forms of democracy that give
equal power to all members in sites beyond the modern nation. A recent book has described many examples of these communities and social movements, Democracy Beyond the State: Practicing Equality. Many have
built egalitarian democratic structures to claim their power as equals to
govern their own lives. Many of them use councils and assemblies as broad-based
decision-making bodies, structures used widely in history and in the present. Multiple
communities use consensus or other practices instead of voting for
representatives. Both these practices reduce the centralization of power in the
hands of the few.

They may do so as part of state
governments, or as parallel to or even in competition with the state in small
communities or in large territories and transnational networks. They do so not
only in the past but also in the present. They do so in rural settings and the
largest urban areas of the world, in families and towns, in farms and in
everyday affairs. They often do so in difficult and even impossible conditions,
yet they have succeeded for decades or centuries. Above all, they do so in
order to govern their own affairs in ways that actively and carefully avoid reinforcing
established inequalities in politics, economics, and other parts of daily life.
These
communities and organizations show that there are many avenues to democratic
equality, that difference
is central to democracy.

Over the next months and years more posts will
introduce multiple sites for democratic practice beyond national electoral
systems that are not found in the book, Democracy Beyond the State: Practicing Equality. These sites ask us to reconsider the meaning of democracy.
Democratic practices are commonplace in ordinary society, and the more they
spread through social relations the weaker national monopoly claims on
democracy will become.